Losing Petals of an Irish Rose
by Jameson Rook
Summary: My chest physically ached. It had every minute since she'd walked out the door, which had been one week, six days, and twenty-three hours. Was it pathetic that I had kept such an acurate account of how long ago she'd walked out? Probably. But, I supposed that it was like being like an alcoholic. I had almost survived the first two weeks post-Fiona.


_**Disclaimer: Burn Notice and all of its characters belong to Matt Nix and the USA Network. "Trying Not To Love You" belongs to Nickelback. **_

**You call to me, and I fall at your feet, how could anyone ask for more?**

**And our time apart, like knives in my heart, how could anyone ask for more?**

**But if there's a pill to help me forget, God knows I haven't found it yet.**

**But, I'm dying to, God I'm trying to, **

**'Cause trying not to love you only goes so far,**

**And trying to need you is tearing me apart.**

**Can't see the silver lining from down here on the floor,**

**And I just keep on trying, but I don't know what for,**

**'Cause trying not to love you only makes me love you more.**

**Only makes me love you more. **

I don't think that there are many things in this world that are more painful than the cold, empty feeling you're left with when the person that you love walks out on you. Fiona was gone. She had looked me in the eye, told me that I didn't know what I wanted, and that I needed to call her when I figured it out. What did I want? That was a loaded question if there ever was one.

I raked my fingers through my hair roughly before leaning forward onto the workbench, bracing myself with my hands. My chest physically ached. It had every minute since she'd walked out the door, which had been one week, six days, and twenty-three hours. Was it pathetic that I had kept such an acurate account of how long she'd been gone? Probably. But, I supposed that it was like being like an alcoholic. I had almost survived the first two weeks post-Fiona.

Moving through the silent loft to the fridge, I pulled a yogurt out, and opened it. I took one bite of it and scowled, my nose crinkling. The feeling of anything on my tongue anymore churned my stomach to the point where I thought I was going to throw up, though it no longer even had a taste. Nothing seemed like it should anymore. Not since she'd gone.

Truth be told, I'd seen her leaving coming. She'd been pulling away. Little things that had just been minor agitations had turned into full blown fights in a matter of seconds. Leave the toilet seat up? Cold shoulder for the next two days. Roll over in your sleep and steal the covers off her feet? World Ward 3. It felt as though I could do nothing right anymore.

I never claimed to be any good at the whole 'relationship' thing, I never claimed that I could give her everything that she needed. I couldn't be the man that _she_ wanted me to be. I wasn't a good man. I had done things that most people couldn't even imagine. They haunted me through every moment of my life, but the most horrific thing that I had ever done was leaving her in Ireland.

I didn't love her. I couldn't love her. She was supposed to be an asset. Expendable. But that had never been the case. I could lie to my targets, but I couldn't lie to myself. Every second I spent trying to convince myself that I didn't love her made me love her more.

**And this kind of pain, only time takes away, **

**That's why it's harder to let you go. **

**Aand nothing I can do without thinking of you,**

**That's why it's harder to let you go. **

**But if there's a pill to help me forget, God know's I haven't found it yet.**

**But I'm trying to, God I'm trying to,**

**'Cause trying not to love you only goes so far,**

**Trying not to need you is tearing me apart.**

**Can't see the silver lining from down here on the floor,**

**And I just keep on trying, but I don't know what for,**

**'Cause trying not to love you only makes me love you more.**

**Only makes me love you more. **

_"You have three new voice messages." _I clicked the 'one' button on my phone and raised the phone back to my ear to listen to the voicemails.

_"Look, Mikey, I know that this isn't exactly a great time for you, but you gotta call someone. We're worried about you, Mike. Get in touch with me and we'll go grab a beer. Hell, I'll even pay for dinner. Just..."_ I could hear Sam sighing into the phone and practically invisioned him running his hand over the back of his neck. _"Just call me, Michael. Please." _I had to admit, I did feel a bit bad for ducking Sam. He was my friend after all.

_"Michael, I haven't heard from you in a couple of days, I'm worried about you. You know that I carried you in my womb for nine months? You'd think the least that you could do is call me let me know that you're not laying in a ditch somewhere. Fiona stopped by a few days ago to pick up a few things. She didn't say much, is there something going on with you two? Anyway, I'm going to a poker game with some friends tonight, but call me when you get this. I'm serious, Michael!" _Oh, mother. How is it that I went ten years without coming home for holidays? I rolled my eyes and waited for the final message.

The voicemail box beeped, and the message played for a couple of seconds with no sound. My brow crinkled in confusion, but then I heard the unmistakable sniffle and soft, choked sob before the line went dead.

Fiona. I knew that sound anywhere. My heart dropped into my stomach as I stared at the phone, my mouth hanging open slightly. She had called. She hadn't said anything, but she'd still called...that was better than nothing, right?

Flipping the phone shut, I dropped the remnants of the nearly full yogurt container into the trash can. For a brief moment, I thought about what my life would be like if I hadn't gone into covert ops. The CIA had changed my life so entirely that I couldn't even remember what it had been like before I signed my life away.

I wouldn't have met Fiona if I hadn't joined. That was worth the nightmares, and the PTSD, and the knowledge that I would never have a 'normal' life was worth it for the mere fact that I had gotten to spend as many days as I had with the most beautiful woman in the world.

There had been a time, before all of the gun manuals had lodged themselves in my brian, and the knowledge of how to make explosives from almost anything and fight my way out of any situation had replaced all of the memories of my younger years, when I had been a semi-normal Florida teenager. I had sun browned cheeks and thread bare t-shirts paired with cargo shorts. I hadn't really hung out with anyone in high school because I was too busy worrying about how I was going to make it thorugh the night without allowing my drunkass father to beat the hell out of my mother and brother.

Somehow, meeting Fiona on that op in Ireland had pushed all of that away. She had shown me that, sometimes, you didn't need the feeling of someone trying to knock your teeth down your throat to feel alive. Sometimes, the feeling of small, warm hands on your bare chest, and an overwhelming warmth surrounding you to remind you that there is actually something that is worth waking up every morning. It was too damned bad that I had let that slip through my fingers. I flopped onto the barstool and buried my head in my hands.

"Oh, God, Fi. What have I done?"

**So, I sit here divided, just talking to myself.**

**Was it something that I did? Was there somebody else?**

**When a voice from behind me, that was fighting back tears,**

**Sat right down beside me, whispered right in my ear,**

**Said, "I've been dying to tell you..."**

The salty tang of my tears hitting the corner of my mouth was something that I hadn't tasted in a long time. As a general rule of thumb, I kept any emotions that I had under wraps. Emotions were an operatives worst enemy. Get too involved in an operation and it is sure to be your undoing. I had violated that rule the second that I had walked into the Black Sands Pub. That had been years before, but the day that she had walked out of my life seemed like it was a thousand year old scar.

_"Michael, I don't give a damn if you think it's some convoluted version of penance for you to help these people! I am not going to go galavanting into the night with you to play superhero on this one!" Fiona fumed. There were quite a few things that I could say about Fiona, but the fact that she had and Irish temper was something that needed no explination. All you had to do to see that was to piss her off and sit back to watch the shit storm._

_ "I'm not asking you to, Fi, I just thought that you would like to know that me and Sam are going to take care of this job. You get mad at me if I don't tell you where I'm going, and then you get mad at me if I do tell you. I don't know what you want from me, Fiona."_

_ "Michael, do you even know what _you_ want from this?" She gestured vaguely to the space between us. I sighed and threw my hands up in the air._

_ "I don't. I'm not going to sugar coat it. I don't want to be with anyone else, but I don't think that I can put myself through the torture of what we endured the last time we tried anything. I just...I don't know what I want, Fi. I'm sorry." My voice had lowered to a low gravely timbre. _

_ "Well you know what? I'll save you the trouble of straining yourself while figuring out exactly what you want. I'm leaving, Michael." And with that, she had stormed out of the loft, slamming the door behind her, and leaving nothing but the subtle scent of gun oil and musky perfume on my pillow. _

I had been so lost in the weight of the sorrow that was pressing on my chest that I hadn't heard the door to the loft opening. I hadn't heard the sound of expensive Italian heels hitting the floor. And I sure as hell hadn't heard the soft intake of breath behind me.

"Michael?" She whispered, jarring me from my thoughts and causing me to spin around on the bar stool, grasping for my gun, but realizing that I had left it across the room. The sight of her silhouetted against the sunlight that streamed through the window had my breath catching in my throat.

"Fiona? What...what are you doing here?" I muttered, not even bothering to wipe the tears from my cheeks. There was no need. Not here. Not with her.

"I missed you. I tried to walk away, and I tried to get on a flight out of here. To anywhere but Miami. But I couldn't do it. I kept thinking about how much it hurt the last time I lost you, and I just...I couldn't go through that again. Not after we've come so far." She stepped closer until she had edged her way between my knees, her hands bracing themselves on my thighs. "I don't want to go away, Michael. I want to be here. With you. Forever." She replied, her nose brushing over mine gently. My stomach fluttered at the contact of her skin on mine.

"I thought I'd lost you, Fi." I whispered, my voice tight with emotion again. I felt the stinging nip of tears hovering at the corners of my eyes as she wrapped her arms around me and pulled me into an embrace.

"I know, Michael, I know." She muttered, her fingers burrowing into my hair and massaging my scalp. I sighed and sank into her embrace further, my own arms wrapping around her, and my fingers rolling into the tight muscles of her back. I buried my nose into the corner of her neck and inhaled that familiar scent as the tears dropped from my eyes onto the fabric of her shirt. I lifted my head slightly and placed a soft kiss to the shell of her ear, sending a shiver through her.

"I love you, Fiona." I whispered against her ear. The words felt so good when they (finally) left my lips that I considered never using another sentence in my life. I could feel her smile against the side of my neck as the scorching trail of her own tears against the skin as I pulled back to look at her.

"I love you too, Michael. I always have. No matter how many times I tried to tell myself I didn't. I've been screwed since the day I met you." She chuckled around the tears, her hands framing my face. I reached out slowly and brushed the tears off of her cheeks with my quivering thumbs. I hesitated for half a second before I made the biggest decision of my life on a whim.

"Marry me." I whispered, my voice so low that it was barely a disturbance in the night air that crackled between us. Her eyes opened wider.

"What?" She whimpered, her voice full of disbelief.

"I don't have a ring, but I can get one. And, I know it's not exactly our style, but I don't want to spend another minute of my life pretending that you aren't the most important thing in the world to me. I want to make it official, and I want the world to know that you are the only woman I will ever love. So," I sucked in a breath and collected my thoughts. "Marry me."

"Why should I?" She countered, a skeptical grin tugging at the corners of her lips. I chuckled and pressed a kiss the corner of that grin.

"Because," I whispered against her lips. "You're screwed either way, you might as well get a shiny new diamond out of it." That brought a full fledged smile to her lips and she nodded slowly.

"Yes. I'll marry you, Michael Westen. On one occasion."

"Name it."

"You sing at the reception." I laughed quietly and nodded. She had heard me singing once when I was trying to plan out details for an operation and I had never heard the end of it. Damn 'Green Fields of France' for digging me into a fifteen hole with a four foot ladder.

"You got it, Misses Westen." I replied, snaking my arms around my fiance and pulling her close.

"That had quite the ring to it." She smirked. "Now, I believe there was the promise of something shiny, and I think that means we have some shopping to do, Mister Westen." She extended her hand to me and tugged me off of the barstool and out into the Miami heat.

For the first time in nearly six years, I walked outside and didn't have the weight of my burn notice, or the worry of someone following me. The only worry that I had was that of making the woman I loved happy every day for the rest of our lives. If I was being honest with myself, I knew that this was always the end game. There was no escaping it. She had been the one for me since day one. Trying to avoid it and telling myself I didn't love her had only made it worse.

And when I looked down at her grinning face over the top of the Charger as she waited for me to catch up, that eager gleam that she got in her eyes when she knew we were going shopping, I knew that there was no where else in the world I would rather be than right there with her. Always.

**"That trying not to love you only went so far.**

**Trying not to need you was tearing me apart.**

**Now I see the silver lining, from what we're fighting for,**

**We just keep on trying, we could be much more.**

**'Cause trying not to love you,**

**Oh, yeah, trying not to love you,**

**Only makes me love you more.**

**Only makes me love you more."**


End file.
